KIPLING’S ‘two impostors’, Triumph and Disaster, were stalking both Britain and Blackpool in 1971.
Sixty-six football fans died in the Ibrox stadium tragedy, a bomb exploded at the top of the Post Office Tower, Rolls Royce went bankrupt and the government sent more troops to troubled Northern Ireland. Internationally, however, the US was starting to wind down its involvement in Vietnam, while the infamous Idi Amin seized power in Uganda.
Britons were accustoming themselves to strange new coins after Decimalisation Day on 15 February, the Open University accepted its first students, the new country of Bangladesh was born, and the first e-mail was sent.
In Blackpool, the resort won the Euro-televised ‘It’s a Knockout’ competition, South Shore sea defences were built at a cost of £160,000, Ripley’s ‘Odditorium’ was unveiled, and Princess Anne visited the town.
But 1971 also witnessed a murder that shocked the nation when Supt Gerry Richardson was shot dead after a raid on a Blackpool jeweller’s on 23 August. Two other police officers and a fireman were injured. Supt Richardson was awarded the George Cross posthumously.
On the footballing front, after just a season back in the First Division, Blackpool were once again relegated to Division 2, though they won the Anglo-Italian Cup in front of 40,000 in Bologna.
Nationally, the first stirrings of glam rock were being felt in the charts, with hits for Sweet (Co-Co), T-Rex (Hot Love) and Slade (Coz I Luv You) as well as Rod Stewart (Maggie May), Clive Dunn (Grandad) and – first time round – Tony Christie with Is This the Way to Amarillo? Led Zeppelin released their classic untitled fourth album, featuring Stairway to Heaven.
It was a prolific year for pop star births, including Mary J Blige, Dido, Tupak Shakur and Missy Elliott. Also born in 1971 were actors Rachel Weisz and Ewan McGregor, sportsmen Roy Keane, David Coulthard and Pete Sampras, and comedian Sacha Baron Cohen (Ali G), while the year saw the deaths of music legends Louis Armstrong and Jim Morrison.
Blackpool itself was on the cusp of fundamental change: the boom in overseas package holidays would trigger an inexorable downturn in visitors to Britain’s holiday capital over the next three decades.
As part of its regeneration plans, however, the resort learned on May 24 2006 that it was on a shortlist of just eight local authorities in the running for the UK’s first ‘super-casino’. Likewise the tramway, which has always been a barometer of Blackpool’s vitality, is also seeking to reinvent itself. As this book went to press, Blackpool was awaiting the result of an ambitious £88m bid to renew ageing infrastructure and buy a fleet of low-floor trams to create a 21st-century light rail system. Meanwhile, over a third of the current 75-strong fleet has been controversially ‘mothballed’ to contain costs.